September 16, 2024 • 37 mins
On the second hour of the show, Chuck Zodda and Mike Armstrong take a look at an Bloomberg opinion piece discussing how consumer staples stocks are seeing more attention. Plus, Sarah Foster of Bankrate joins the show to talk about their updated wage to inflation index. Which Apple product is getting more attention that the iPhone 16? Plus, stack roulette.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:20):
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(00:42):
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(01:06):
This is the Financial Exchange, with Chuck Zada and Mike Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Kicking off the second hour.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
The Financial Exchange is Chuck, Mike and Tucker with the end.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
We've got mixed markets today, with the Dow up one.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Hundred and thirty six points, the S ANDP is down fifteen,
the Nasdaq being dragged largely by Apple on reports that
iPhone sixteen sales might be lighter than hoped for. Uh So,
you've got the Nasdaq struggling the most, down about one percent.
The tenor US Treasury is off one point six basis
points to three point six three three percent. Oil rising today,
(01:44):
back above seventy barrel for the first time in a
little over a week. I think up a dollar fifty
one a barrel to seventy sixteen on West Texas Intermediate.
And we've got gold down three dollars and forty cents
an ounce to twenty six oh seven and thirty cents
for gas prices continuing to fall, where at three twenty
and eight tenths of ascent, that's down an additional tenth
(02:05):
of ascent overnight and now down about twenty three cents
in the last month, and about thirty cents off of
where we spent most of the summer. Based on current
gasoline futures prices, still looks like we're heading low. We're
probably getting into the three ten range at least over
the next couple of weeks, but the potentially get nationally
below three dollars a gallon sometime in October if these
(02:30):
trends were to continue. I let's talk a little bit
about a small Arkansas retailer by the name of Walmart.
Do you know the hometown of Walmart, by the way,
either of you? I did, right, Betonville, Bettonville, Arkansas. Yeah,
it's you kind of wonder like, why do I know that?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
But I do. For some reason. I do love all
the newspaper articles from way back in the day of
you know, can this tiny Bettonville will be tailor take
down the Sears or Macy's or you know any of
the stories that they did.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, they did turned out, And this story is not
about them taking on Seers or taking on anyone, but
in fact the fact that, hey, consumer staple stocks tend
to be generally some of the more boring ones in
the stock world. They still can have volatility associate with
them especially. Look, even in downturns, they don't necessarily perform great,
(03:28):
but they tend to be, you know, kind of boring,
steady eddy. Okay, I'll cut my dividend coupon and carry
on with my life and YadA YadA. But recently you've
seen a little bit of excitement heading towards consumer staple stocks.
I was looking today and in the last month, the
S and P five hundred consumer staple sector the fourth
(03:48):
best performing sector in the index. Best performing sector has
been real estate, which again kind of got beaten up
over the last couple of years with rising interests. Second
best has been utilities, again kind of also boring, steady eddy.
Third consumer discretionary, but that's more just Tesla stock has
(04:10):
recovered in such a big part of consumer discretionary in
that in that index. But consumer staples up four point
five to three percent over the last month through last Friday.
And so yeah, you've had, you know, kind of a
nice little run for staple stocks that generally are pretty boring.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Walmart stock alone this year up over fifty percent. Now
with with this most recent bounce after you know, after
repeated good earnings and you know, same store sales growth
that has been you know, admittedly impressive. They're attracting new customers,
they are doing a lot, right, But you know, Jonathan
Levine and Bloomberg point out the the multiples on these
(04:54):
companies are again looking like I don't know, massive growth
tech companies at this stage. You've got Walmart, which is
commanding a multiple of over thirty and Costco over fifty
right now, and that's not let's just call it an
atypical of consumer staple companies.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Well, I'm just gonna pull up Walmart and just take
a look. Actually, I'll pull up both of those. You said,
Walmart and Costco. Yes, okay, So if we pull these
up and we take a look at PE ratios. PE
ratios are forward pee which one were they citing just
way they were siting forward? Okay, so that's projected projected earnings. Yes,
(05:36):
over the next you know year, We'll say. And so
we're looking at Walmart and Costco. So I pulled these
up just to look at you know, kind of the
last few years. Just as an example, Costco up until
January of this year, was generally trading in a multiple
between thirty and forty five x forward earnings Walmart was
(05:57):
generally between twenty and twenty five. So, yes, like these
numbers are higher than they've been, But I also don't
want to make it seem like, hey, these are the
stodgy consumer staple stocks or utilities that trade at like
twelve x. Right, That's not where these have been either
in recent history. So it's not something where you look
at it and say, well, they're trading, you know, fifty
(06:21):
or seventy five percent above their normal valuations. No, they're
trading probably fifteen to twenty percent above their normal valuations
for you know, the last several years, and that includes,
by the way, twenty twenty two, which is when a
lot of stocks got beaten up pretty badly.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Costco's pe forward.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Pe during that time went from around forty three at
the beginning of the year to thirty one at the
end of the year. Walmart's during that time, I don't
have data going back all the way for Walmart, but
in February it was trading at twenty two x twenty
three x forward earnings. By the end of the year,
their pe it actually expanded by you know a little
bit to almost four x forward earnings. So I think
(07:03):
looking at this Yes, these stocks are a little bit pricey,
but the whole market's a little bit pricey right now,
except for a couple areas that continue to be beaten up,
energy and financials, which just have gotten no love at
any point in this cycle. Really, financials had a brief
period of love last year.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I think the question that, so, you know, what do
I do about this as the average person? Well, a
few months ago, the real piece here was that, look,
the stock market's being dragged upwards by in Nvidia and
looks pretty expensive, mainly because of one company or just
a few companies in the semiconductor and weight loss drug space.
(07:45):
This has broadened, This rally has broad which is a
good thing. On one hand. The buyer beware scenario is
just that, hey, most corners of the stock market are
historically pretty pricey right now. Yeah, And it's.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
It's something where ultimately it's there's one thing that's going
to answer the question of whether or not these valuations
are deserved here, and that's does the US economy go
into recession in the next three to six months?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Of course, will those earnings continue to grow?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Nothing else really matters at this point. It's can you
get through the next three to six months without any
kind of recession.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And I guess the other piece would be, don't assume
that just because oh it's a utility company, it can't
be impacted by the rest like of course it will
be a heck of a lot of the rally that
you've seen in some of these utility companies has been
based on the assumption that AI continues to develop and
they start selling nuclear power to companies that are utilizing
the high energy intensive artificial intelligence platforms, And you know,
(08:46):
will Costco continue to see their membership growth in the
face of recession, Like, don't always bank on you know,
one sector or one area of the market dodging a
recession that that's not historically always how it's played out.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Oh and even within those I'm just pulling up a
couple examples just to look at them. So let's look
at the they mentioned also in one of these Procter
and Gamble and Costco doesn't go back that far.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
When did Costco go public?
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Not not prior to the Great Recession. I don't believe.
Let's hang on, hold on, maybe they did. Oh no,
that's not that's not Costco. I don't know how we
ended up with that.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I'm seeing nineteen eighty five, yep, So we.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Actually do have data there.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Uh So if we look at two thousand and eight,
just as an example. Uh and again I haven't even
looked at any of these before, but in July of eight,
Coca Cola was at twenty five bucks a share, Procter
and Gambles at sixty five, Costco's at sixty two. By
March of nine, Coca Cola this is the end of March,
(09:44):
March thirty first, Coca Cola is a twenty one to
ninety eight, so down about fifteen percent. Procter and Gambles
at forty seven, so down about twenty five percent, Costco
at forty six, down about twenty five percent.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So Mark it was off you know, forty or fifty
or at that time.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
But it's not like you got out without any problems here.
So just because someone says, oh, a consumer staples stocks
or you know, safer than other ones, hey, that's not
always the case. Like they still have to be good
companies and well run in YadA YadA.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You know, the consumer staples companies have gone out of
business before they have and we have still the execution risk, yes,
and they.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Do still get caught up in overall market volatility. It's
not something where they just escape it h and everything
is fine and honkey dory for them.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Let's take a quick break here.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
When we come back, we're gonna be joined by Sarah
Foster from Bank Rate H talking a little bit about
inflation and wages. When we return, tune in for trivia
brought to you by Applebee's every day at eleven twenty.
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Speaker 2 (12:16):
Joining us now is Sarah Foster from Bancre. Talk to
us about the wage inflation index and Sarah, this has
been something that's been written about quite a bit. Is
have American workers in the aggregate or on average, kept
pace with the incredible inflation that we've seen over the
last few years. Thanks for joining us, and I guess
(12:36):
what did you guys look at specifically when it came
to price increases versus American wages?
Speaker 6 (12:44):
Great to be here. One thing that I think is
important to note is that prices have cooled so much
that wages over the past sixteen months have been recovering
from the rapid post pandemic inflation. But I think what
is especially important is to zoom out to the very
point that prices first began to surge, And if you
(13:04):
do that, you can still see that there is a
gap between inflation and wages, which is probably why Americans
are feeling so downtrodden about the economy. But when you
put it on paper here we see that wages have
risen seventeen point four percent since January first, twenty twenty one,
and then prices have risen twenty percent.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
So you asked the important question is of will American
wages ever recover? Will we ever recover from high inflation?
And I guess I don't know how to answer that
question other than to look at it historically, because you know,
we've talked a lot. In fact, I think much has
been written about the stagnation of the American middle class
and how wages generally haven't really kept pace with where
(13:46):
they were decades ago. But have they outperformed inflation over
thirty year time periods in American history? I think is
an important question too. I mean, how do you guys
look at it in terms of answering the will it
ever make us come back? Question?
Speaker 6 (14:00):
And it's a very valid question, and economists and researchers
that we talk to for this study also say that,
you know, some of them are skeptical whether inflation will
ever slow enough to the point that wages are able
to catch back up. I think what is important is
that as inflation flows and as the economy holds up,
(14:23):
wages are actually rising at a faster pace than inflation.
But it's just that totality that they're still trailing. So
I think while wages rise at that faster pace, it
is going to help Americans feel better. But it's of
course when you look at how much prices that everyday
Americans are trying to afford. You know, we look at gasoline, groceries, housing,
(14:46):
you know, those components have risen even faster than the
overall rate of inflation. I think what is especially crucial,
and of course we're two days away from an expected
interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve for the first time.
What's especially important is that the Fed does get this right,
because if we were to face a recession, of course
(15:07):
inflation would probably slow, but so would wages as well,
because it's directly related to the bargaining powers that American
workers have in this labor market.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Sarah, that is important, absolutely, Sarah. I mean one of
the areas too that you point out, and this is
where people can get lost in the averages. But obviously
not all demographics are the same here, right, Did you
guys notice any differences when looking at either certain sectors
of the economy or certain age demographics in terms of
keeping up or especially losing pace to inflation.
Speaker 6 (15:40):
We wanted to look at an industry perspective, and we
did find that there are some industries that have actually
beat inflation. We're thinking accommodations and food services, leisure and hospitality.
The reason is exactly kind of what we were talking
about before. Those workers had tremendous bargaining power coming out
of the post pandemic no recession where they lost jobs,
(16:03):
companies tried to bring them back in a hurry. There
was that mismatch between labor demand and labor supply, and
that ultimately helped push up wages. That wasn't really the
same for other industries. The other industries that were really
trailing inflation the most were education and then construction.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
That's Sarah Foster from Bancrea joining us today talk about
how Americans wages are keeping pace or losing ground to
inflation over the last few years. Sarah, thanks so much
for joining us.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
Appreciate it, grace to be here, Thanks for having me. Well.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Street Journal piece today titled why a FED rate cut
won't solve the housing wealth gap, Well, it's because you
can't use a rate cut to go back in time
and buy before prices went up. Insurance is continuing to
go up in costs, property taxes are continuing to go up,
and as such, if you're on the outside looking in
for housing, you generally feel like you're kind of screwed
(16:56):
and have no chance.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Well, and furthermore, nothing about a rate cut specifically incentivizes
homebuilders to build more homes nor is it anywhere within
the FEDS mandate.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
It's not to make housing affordable. It's not their problem,
and it shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
You don't want the FED being the ones that makes
housing more affordable and solves the wealth gap. In fact,
I'll take it further, You don't want the federal reserves
solving the wealth gap at all. Rather, it's any area
of the wealth gap. You want them to do two things,
keep this in mind, only two. Keep unemployment low and
(17:36):
attempt to moderate price increases.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
The other thing that I got to say, it continues
to bother me when interest.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Rates are low.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Hey, low interest rates punish people who aren't homeowners, like
it makes it impossible for them to get into the
home ownership market. Well, okay, we raised interest rates. High
interest rates make it impossible for people to get into
It can't be both, apparently, can you have to pick
one and stay with it.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
High and low interest rates can't be the problem, Or
if they are, maybe the problem is in interest rates.
Maybe the problem is the overall amount of housing that
we have. Yeah, lower interest rates in my mind, the
only group that I can think that that definitively might
help risk av Yeah, I mean in the housing market specifically,
(18:23):
it's definitively Okay. If I have an outstanding mortgage at
like seven and a half percent and rates go lower, okay,
I know I can refinance my mortgage. I'm less confident
by the way that lower rates are going to lead
new home buyers to get more affordable deals on housing,
because competition is gonna keep back up for that housing.
Everybody's gonna want a motgage again, you're gonna have. I'm
not convinced you will see more inventory. I'm pretty convinced
(18:46):
you will see new buyers.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I think you'll see more inventory, but you buy like
I think what you end up with is how the
housing market is stagnated this year when you know rates
were high and more inventory came on, it'll help to
clear that inventory, but not more affordable prices. It doesn't
do anything on that, and it's not supposed to, by
the way. Quick break here, when we come back, we
(19:08):
have the trivia answer, and then we're talking Apple's hot
new product.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day.
It's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Mike, are you a fan of Apple's AirPods? No, I
don't have them. I don't either, Tucker, do you have them?
Speaker 4 (19:37):
I received them as a wedding gift from you know,
the being a grooms and.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Crows and gifts simply yes, what it's done. Yes? And
I barely use them.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
He has friends, whereas wet I barely use it.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
You don't you? How come?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I don't know?
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I have no need to you.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I barely on the phone. Can't you the music? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (20:01):
I don't. I just I have a speaker in my
living room and I listen to that.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
What about when you're working out?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Okay, I guess we've covered all the use cases now.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
In any case, Apple's AirPods Pro two, with an update
that is being rolled out this fall, is being turned
into a real legitimate hearing aid. And this is very
cool for a couple of different reasons, the first being
that it obviously makes hearing aids accessible to just a
(20:37):
wide number of people who might know they need hearing
aids but might not have gotten off the couch to
do anything about it yet, and might own this product.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Because it's specifically designed for mild hearing loss, you have
a severe hearing loss, You're you're not going to be
all that impressed with these products, is my guess.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
So there might already be just a ton of people
with these in hand that can use them to be like, oh,
like does make you know my hearing much better? Maybe
I should continue to use this. But it also is,
as we've seen from Apple, this is one of those
use cases that I think might actually drive marginal sales
in some cases with the caveat these. I looked at
(21:17):
pictures of these just because I was curious, like what
they look like and everything. It looks like you have
earbuds in when you have these in, because you have
earbuds in when you have these.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, they're not hidden like a like some higher end
hearing aids.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
So a couple of things. If you see someone walking
around with air pods in, isn't your assumption that they're
listening to something else and not available to be talked to.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I think that's starting to change, is it. I think
so because of these products, which you know have been right.
They have all these different modes right where you can
do transparency mode where you can actually hear other conversations,
or you can you know, block all the noise out.
So I think it is becoming more common to have
a conversation with Yeah, your EarPods in, but yeah, that
(22:05):
would be a stopper for me. If somebody started talking
to me on the street that was wearing headphones, I
would assume they're talking to somebody on their phone. So
I do wonder about that.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
The other thing is, look, I think a lot of
people who do use hearing aids do want something with
as minimal as form factor as they can find, because
they don't want something that's drawing attention to it. Right,
this does somewhat potentially draw attention to it, but it's
also hey, it's a headphone, so it could just be
someone who's listening to headphones.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, a few years ago, something changed in the hearing
aid space. I don't remember what it was. It might
have been Medicare rules around them, where they became suddenly
massively more affordable and could be produced by a lot
of new competitors. And so I know that already occurred,
but I do think, you know, especially by the way,
(22:54):
if Apple can get this approved as a true like
Medicare eligible medical device, that does open up a new
potential sales channel for them. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
The big thing that happened it was back in twenty
twenty two, the FDA they announced that for people with
mild to moderate hearing loss, they don't need to get
a prescription and can buy right hearing aids directly from
stores or online vendors. And so it again you saw
the cost just absolutely collapse for the hearing aids that
(23:27):
fit that you know description, and so this potentially just
again add some additional accessibility here.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I don't know how much it drives in sales, but
I could see this being a marginal sales driver for
this product for Apple at least. Yeah, I could too.
I'm putting it in by grandfather's perspective, has worn hearing
aids for a few decades, and you know, talk to
me about that when twenty twenty two yelled around. And
these days his hearing aids do a lot more. They
do connect to his phone. He listens to music on
them when exercising. He talks to people. When I call
(23:57):
him on the phone, he's talking to me through his
hearing aid. So yeah, I mean for someone like him,
where he's already had the product for a long time,
he's not going to go to an AirPod. But for
somebody that is experiencing it and might need something but
doesn't go quite that far. Yeah, I think it opens
something up.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
And again, this is only on the air Pods Pro two,
It's not on any other version that is currently out there.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Chuck. Yes, next month we're hitting the road. We are.
We got some road trips planned. We have some road
trips planned. We are doing two live broadcasts of this show.
The Financial Exchange broadcast is going to be occurring in
October from the MGM in Springfield and the Marguerite Hotel
in Hyannas. Not at the same time. That'd be challenging.
(24:46):
That would be especially challenging for Tucker back here in
the studio trying to rerout all of it. But we're
doing a live broadcast of the Financial Exchange on October
eighth in Springfield at the MGM, and then following that,
we'll be doing a live broadcast on October twenty fourth
from the Margarita Vote Margaritaville Hotel and Resort on Hyannas.
We'll be following that up with a free live seminar
(25:10):
that Armstrong Advisory Group's doing after the Financial Exchange. Again,
October eighth and twenty fourth are the dates of the events,
but we'll be joined by Ed Lambert down on the
Cape where he'd be talking to us about the overall
political situation and heading into the election, and we'll be
covering a lot of that. Obviously, a lot of questions
being raised about tax policy coming out of the Harris campaign,
(25:32):
coming out of the Trump campaign, what might it look
like for tax rates and markets in the future. We'll
be covering that in a whole lot more, both during
the live broadcast as well as during the seminar following
the live broadcast. But once again we're doing one from Springfield.
That one's October eighth live broadcast of the Financial Exchange.
You can come on down see how we do it.
(25:52):
It's at the MGM Springfield October eighth, followed by the
Margarita Vote Margaritaville Hotel and Resort on Hyannas on October
twenty fourth. If you would like to sign up, space
is limited, so we do need you to sign up
ahead of time. You go to Armstrong Advisory dot com
slash events and you can sign up right there. You're
also welcome to call us and we can help you
(26:13):
register the phone number there for the Armstrong Advisory Group
is eight hundred three nine three four zero zero one.
But again Armstrong Advisory dot Com slash events to sign
up for our live broadcast of the Financial Exchange or
eight hundred three nine three four zero zero one.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
The proceeding was paid for by Armstrong Advisory Group, a
registered investment advisor. Nothing in the ad or in any
Armstrong guide a specific financial, legal or tax advice. Consult
your own financial, tax, and estate planning advisors before making
any investment decisions. Armstrong make contact you to offer investment
advisory services.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Mike, do you visit Indeed dot com very often?
Speaker 6 (26:48):
No?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Tucker, what about you? No?
Speaker 3 (26:51):
No, I feel like I have no other options? Stay
there in any case? Yeah, weekly, every single day. Spara
to get out of here every single moment. I guess,
I guess. They put up a chart on Indeed in
their Career Advice section, and it divided your career into stages,
and the first stage of age twenty one to twenty
(27:13):
five was exploration that sounds exciting. By age forty five
to fifty five you hit late career, and by fifty
five to sixty five you hit decline. And naturally, all
of those who were working in their fifties and sixties
are like, yo, man, just getting started.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, I'm cooking now, Like, let me keep going.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And this reaches something, you know, kind of gets to
something that we've seen over the last fifteen years in particular,
which is, hey, there are more people that are continuing
to work into their fifty sixty, seventies and now eighties
yea than any other generation previously. And in some cases
that is because they have to, though that's diminished somewhat
since the Great Financial Crisis, and now you're seeing more
(27:58):
and more people working into their seventies and eighties because
they want to, and they're saying, no, like I enjoy
what I'm doing. I like to do this to you know,
keep myself sharp and not enter into the decline phase
of you know, my life and everything. So no, please
don't refer to me as being in the decline phase. Yeah,
(28:18):
I have a family member who's right there.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
You know, he's at the age where he's going to
be working while of required minimum distribution agent. That's a
far more common occurrence than it was a few years ago.
And you know, it has been reshaping the labor market
around the edges. I think that's definitely the case more
than it was, say, thirty years ago. It also, you know,
(28:41):
causing to question a whole bunch of their rules around
things like social Security, like required distributions and how all
these things work. Right, if we have a larger portion
of the population working into their seventies, some of these
things might need to be looked at and reformed even
further than they already have been.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And I do love that they up a couple of
people that they reference here. First Eugene Fama, who is
a very famous economist who's literally had all kinds of
theories that have been published about markets. They reference him
as one of the people that they're talking about in
this and then Ian McKellen, who played Gandolf and Lord
(29:18):
of the Rings is another day reference. You might as
well just throw a Warren Buffett on the list, just
for I mean, there are also normal.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Average Americans that work into the seventies.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yes, there are not all Knights, no, exactly like you.
You don't have to be someone of like that stature
and that you know, renown to continue to work into
your eighties. It's like, oh, well, Morgan Freeman, you know
it was like ninety six right now.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
That would narrow the label laborpool quite considerably if you
had to be knighted in order to work into your seventies.
Do either of you think you'll ever be knighted? Maybe
by one of my kids, No, like by the king
or Queen of England. No, I don't think so. Not
rolling it out, mostly though I don't spend much time there.
I don't think that matters. Yeah, well maybe it does
(30:08):
a little bit. That's the only reason. Like if I
if I just spent a few more holidays in the UK,
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Can they do like an honorary nighting, like where you
get an honorary degree from a college.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Isn't the whole thing? Is? Well, then what's the problem.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
I think they give you a sword and you have
to like swear to you know, be a nice But
they don't send you in to the Crusades, not yet.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
You never know. This is just how they like pull
you in, right ye? In any case, classic bait and switch.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I thought it was getting just you know, a cool title,
and instead now I'm being deployed by.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
The UK somewhere. Let's take a quick break. When we return,
it's time for stack Roulette.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
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Speaker 4 (31:05):
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Speaker 2 (31:42):
Mike, what do you have for me for stack Roulettes?
What would happen if TikTok loses its fight over the
law that is banning it in the United States? The
obvious answer would be that it would be banned, would
one would think, But the opening arguments are starting today
in US Court Appeals in d C on the congressional
ban of TikTok specifically, and whether or not, Yeah, that
(32:07):
circuit will overrule the law that Congress passed here, But
certainly I think the risk is higher than any time
previously when this was done via executive action. This was
in fact a law that passed by Congress to say, yeah,
this platform cannot continue to exist in its current format. Now,
potentially what would happen here if it did in fact
(32:28):
pass and the TikTok lost their appeal would be a sale,
although Chinese owner ByteDance has made very clear that they
don't want to sail, and furthermore, the government has said
that they're probably not going to allow a sale or
at least a sale of the algorithms that go along
with the TikTok app. So I don't know where this
(32:50):
is going to be. I don't know where anyone's going
to go with it. You could make a pretty compelling argument,
by the way, that with Congress writing the law in
the way that they did, which was specifcifically banning one
company rather than saying, hey, if if an app you know,
breaks these rules, then we are going to ban it.
Perhaps this will get overturned. I'm not sure, but yeah,
(33:11):
huge market for TikTok. Obviously, if we look at other
social media companies, the United States is consistently at the
top of that average revenue per user list, so your
TikTok would lose out on a massive income base here
as well. And it's already banned in India, so there
aren't a ton of other new markets that they would
be able to enter into replace this. Yeah, it's I
(33:35):
think it should be banned by the way. I don't
know if that came across. I hope that they lose
their appeal and this is no longer I've voiced my
concerns about the Chinese government having this level of tracking data.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
And if if byte Dance comes out and you know,
if they lose, then they're like, no, we're not going
to pursue a sale.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Great.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Well, then doesn't it ultimately become even more apparent that hey,
you just wanted access to the data because them didn't
matter to you. Of course, Yeah, right, Tucker. You've been
watching some football games the last.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Couple I have had, you know, on DirecTV. No, god, no,
have you noticed anything about the games this year? Have
you not underwhelming?
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Have you noticed that they're boring. Yeah, a lot of
dogs are covering too well. I want to talk to
you a little bit about this, okay. Steve Palizzolo, formerly
of Pro Football Focus, has some data on this that
through the first two weeks, and granted Monday Night hasn't
happened here yet, but these are the number of passing
touchdowns through the first two weeks in the NFL one
hundred and five and twenty nineteen, one hundred and ten
(34:39):
and twenty twenty, one hundred and ten, twenty twenty two,
one hundred and five and twenty twenty three. I'm sorry,
I skipped a year eighty six and twenty twenty three,
sixty six in twenty twenty four. Passing touchdowns down forty
percent over the last two years now, and it's resulting
in a whole bunch of people. Again I don't know about,
(35:00):
but a lot of my friends, who you know, enjoy
gambling on sports or you know, fantasy football and this
and that, they absolutely despise what is going on right
now because they're saying, look, this is boring. I'm like,
I'm getting crushed by this and that and everything and
are generally not enjoying it. And what I'm wondering about
on this is before sports gambling was legalized, it was Hey,
(35:25):
I'm watching the games to watch the games, and I'm
watching the games. But if people start to have bad
experiences gambling on your sport, does that push them away
from it in any way, shape or form, or is
that not the case.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
I had a buddy yesterday who you know, I feel
like collectively people got smoked yesterday on the gambling front.
But one of my buddies was just like, Okay, I
get I'm pushing away now like NFL is too hard to.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Can't do it, But right now, yeah, I would think not.
I would eventually imagine that the odds change and you
have new people playing the same different bets this time. Yeah,
I don't know what the uh.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
I don't have an answer on it, but I just
wonder about it because for years we've you know, speculated,
all is this gonna be what you know hurts the
NFL is and nothing, nothing like nothing continues to it
doesn't matter. It's the only place that you can consistently
get tens of millions of people watching each weekend and
then hundreds of millions for the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Even if I have to change the app on which
I watched the program. Every single time I watch.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
It, it doesn't matter like it's it is kind of
impervious to everything right now. I just wonder if when
people start losing money on it because of this, does
that change it. But again, I think it kind.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Of has to prove that it would. Yeah, facts aren't
in evidence yet.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Taking Oligan market, it's still mixed right now. The Dow
is up one hundred and forty one points, SMPS down nine,
nasdack down one fifty two.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
We're done for the day. See you tomorrow.
The Financial Exchange is produced by Money Matters Radio and
is hosted by employees of the Armstrong Advisory Group, a
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(00:20):
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(01:06):
This is the Financial Exchange, with Chuck Zada and Mike Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Kicking off the second hour.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
The Financial Exchange is Chuck, Mike and Tucker with the end.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
We've got mixed markets today, with the Dow up one.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Hundred and thirty six points, the S ANDP is down fifteen,
the Nasdaq being dragged largely by Apple on reports that
iPhone sixteen sales might be lighter than hoped for. Uh So,
you've got the Nasdaq struggling the most, down about one percent.
The tenor US Treasury is off one point six basis
points to three point six three three percent. Oil rising today,
(01:44):
back above seventy barrel for the first time in a
little over a week. I think up a dollar fifty
one a barrel to seventy sixteen on West Texas Intermediate.
And we've got gold down three dollars and forty cents
an ounce to twenty six oh seven and thirty cents
for gas prices continuing to fall, where at three twenty
and eight tenths of ascent, that's down an additional tenth
(02:05):
of ascent overnight and now down about twenty three cents
in the last month, and about thirty cents off of
where we spent most of the summer. Based on current
gasoline futures prices, still looks like we're heading low. We're
probably getting into the three ten range at least over
the next couple of weeks, but the potentially get nationally
below three dollars a gallon sometime in October if these
(02:30):
trends were to continue. I let's talk a little bit
about a small Arkansas retailer by the name of Walmart.
Do you know the hometown of Walmart, by the way,
either of you? I did, right, Betonville, Bettonville, Arkansas. Yeah,
it's you kind of wonder like, why do I know that?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
But I do. For some reason. I do love all
the newspaper articles from way back in the day of
you know, can this tiny Bettonville will be tailor take
down the Sears or Macy's or you know any of
the stories that they did.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, they did turned out, And this story is not
about them taking on Seers or taking on anyone, but
in fact the fact that, hey, consumer staple stocks tend
to be generally some of the more boring ones in
the stock world. They still can have volatility associate with
them especially. Look, even in downturns, they don't necessarily perform great,
(03:28):
but they tend to be, you know, kind of boring,
steady eddy. Okay, I'll cut my dividend coupon and carry
on with my life and YadA YadA. But recently you've
seen a little bit of excitement heading towards consumer staple stocks.
I was looking today and in the last month, the
S and P five hundred consumer staple sector the fourth
(03:48):
best performing sector in the index. Best performing sector has
been real estate, which again kind of got beaten up
over the last couple of years with rising interests. Second
best has been utilities, again kind of also boring, steady eddy.
Third consumer discretionary, but that's more just Tesla stock has
(04:10):
recovered in such a big part of consumer discretionary in
that in that index. But consumer staples up four point
five to three percent over the last month through last Friday.
And so yeah, you've had, you know, kind of a
nice little run for staple stocks that generally are pretty boring.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Walmart stock alone this year up over fifty percent. Now
with with this most recent bounce after you know, after
repeated good earnings and you know, same store sales growth
that has been you know, admittedly impressive. They're attracting new customers,
they are doing a lot, right, But you know, Jonathan
Levine and Bloomberg point out the the multiples on these
(04:54):
companies are again looking like I don't know, massive growth
tech companies at this stage. You've got Walmart, which is
commanding a multiple of over thirty and Costco over fifty
right now, and that's not let's just call it an
atypical of consumer staple companies.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Well, I'm just gonna pull up Walmart and just take
a look. Actually, I'll pull up both of those. You said,
Walmart and Costco. Yes, okay, So if we pull these
up and we take a look at PE ratios. PE
ratios are forward pee which one were they citing just
way they were siting forward? Okay, so that's projected projected earnings. Yes,
(05:36):
over the next you know year, We'll say. And so
we're looking at Walmart and Costco. So I pulled these
up just to look at you know, kind of the
last few years. Just as an example, Costco up until
January of this year, was generally trading in a multiple
between thirty and forty five x forward earnings Walmart was
(05:57):
generally between twenty and twenty five. So, yes, like these
numbers are higher than they've been, But I also don't
want to make it seem like, hey, these are the
stodgy consumer staple stocks or utilities that trade at like
twelve x. Right, That's not where these have been either
in recent history. So it's not something where you look
at it and say, well, they're trading, you know, fifty
(06:21):
or seventy five percent above their normal valuations. No, they're
trading probably fifteen to twenty percent above their normal valuations
for you know, the last several years, and that includes,
by the way, twenty twenty two, which is when a
lot of stocks got beaten up pretty badly.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Costco's pe forward.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Pe during that time went from around forty three at
the beginning of the year to thirty one at the
end of the year. Walmart's during that time, I don't
have data going back all the way for Walmart, but
in February it was trading at twenty two x twenty
three x forward earnings. By the end of the year,
their pe it actually expanded by you know a little
bit to almost four x forward earnings. So I think
(07:03):
looking at this Yes, these stocks are a little bit pricey,
but the whole market's a little bit pricey right now,
except for a couple areas that continue to be beaten up,
energy and financials, which just have gotten no love at
any point in this cycle. Really, financials had a brief
period of love last year.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I think the question that, so, you know, what do
I do about this as the average person? Well, a
few months ago, the real piece here was that, look,
the stock market's being dragged upwards by in Nvidia and
looks pretty expensive, mainly because of one company or just
a few companies in the semiconductor and weight loss drug space.
(07:45):
This has broadened, This rally has broad which is a
good thing. On one hand. The buyer beware scenario is
just that, hey, most corners of the stock market are
historically pretty pricey right now. Yeah, And it's.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
It's something where ultimately it's there's one thing that's going
to answer the question of whether or not these valuations
are deserved here, and that's does the US economy go
into recession in the next three to six months?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Of course, will those earnings continue to grow?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Nothing else really matters at this point. It's can you
get through the next three to six months without any
kind of recession.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
And I guess the other piece would be, don't assume
that just because oh it's a utility company, it can't
be impacted by the rest like of course it will
be a heck of a lot of the rally that
you've seen in some of these utility companies has been
based on the assumption that AI continues to develop and
they start selling nuclear power to companies that are utilizing
the high energy intensive artificial intelligence platforms, And you know,
(08:46):
will Costco continue to see their membership growth in the
face of recession, Like, don't always bank on you know,
one sector or one area of the market dodging a
recession that that's not historically always how it's played out.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Oh and even within those I'm just pulling up a
couple examples just to look at them. So let's look
at the they mentioned also in one of these Procter
and Gamble and Costco doesn't go back that far.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
When did Costco go public?
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Not not prior to the Great Recession. I don't believe.
Let's hang on, hold on, maybe they did. Oh no,
that's not that's not Costco. I don't know how we
ended up with that.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
I'm seeing nineteen eighty five, yep, So we.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Actually do have data there.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Uh So if we look at two thousand and eight,
just as an example. Uh and again I haven't even
looked at any of these before, but in July of eight,
Coca Cola was at twenty five bucks a share, Procter
and Gambles at sixty five, Costco's at sixty two. By
March of nine, Coca Cola this is the end of March,
(09:44):
March thirty first, Coca Cola is a twenty one to
ninety eight, so down about fifteen percent. Procter and Gambles
at forty seven, so down about twenty five percent, Costco
at forty six, down about twenty five percent.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So Mark it was off you know, forty or fifty
or at that time.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
But it's not like you got out without any problems here.
So just because someone says, oh, a consumer staples stocks
or you know, safer than other ones, hey, that's not
always the case. Like they still have to be good
companies and well run in YadA YadA.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You know, the consumer staples companies have gone out of
business before they have and we have still the execution risk, yes,
and they.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Do still get caught up in overall market volatility. It's
not something where they just escape it h and everything
is fine and honkey dory for them.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Let's take a quick break here.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
When we come back, we're gonna be joined by Sarah
Foster from Bank Rate H talking a little bit about
inflation and wages. When we return, tune in for trivia
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Speaker 2 (12:16):
Joining us now is Sarah Foster from Bancre. Talk to
us about the wage inflation index and Sarah, this has
been something that's been written about quite a bit. Is
have American workers in the aggregate or on average, kept
pace with the incredible inflation that we've seen over the
last few years. Thanks for joining us, and I guess
(12:36):
what did you guys look at specifically when it came
to price increases versus American wages?
Speaker 6 (12:44):
Great to be here. One thing that I think is
important to note is that prices have cooled so much
that wages over the past sixteen months have been recovering
from the rapid post pandemic inflation. But I think what
is especially important is to zoom out to the very
point that prices first began to surge, And if you
(13:04):
do that, you can still see that there is a
gap between inflation and wages, which is probably why Americans
are feeling so downtrodden about the economy. But when you
put it on paper here we see that wages have
risen seventeen point four percent since January first, twenty twenty one,
and then prices have risen twenty percent.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
So you asked the important question is of will American
wages ever recover? Will we ever recover from high inflation?
And I guess I don't know how to answer that
question other than to look at it historically, because you know,
we've talked a lot. In fact, I think much has
been written about the stagnation of the American middle class
and how wages generally haven't really kept pace with where
(13:46):
they were decades ago. But have they outperformed inflation over
thirty year time periods in American history? I think is
an important question too. I mean, how do you guys
look at it in terms of answering the will it
ever make us come back? Question?
Speaker 6 (14:00):
And it's a very valid question, and economists and researchers
that we talk to for this study also say that,
you know, some of them are skeptical whether inflation will
ever slow enough to the point that wages are able
to catch back up. I think what is important is
that as inflation flows and as the economy holds up,
(14:23):
wages are actually rising at a faster pace than inflation.
But it's just that totality that they're still trailing. So
I think while wages rise at that faster pace, it
is going to help Americans feel better. But it's of
course when you look at how much prices that everyday
Americans are trying to afford. You know, we look at gasoline, groceries, housing,
(14:46):
you know, those components have risen even faster than the
overall rate of inflation. I think what is especially crucial,
and of course we're two days away from an expected
interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve for the first time.
What's especially important is that the Fed does get this right,
because if we were to face a recession, of course
(15:07):
inflation would probably slow, but so would wages as well,
because it's directly related to the bargaining powers that American
workers have in this labor market.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Sarah, that is important, absolutely, Sarah. I mean one of
the areas too that you point out, and this is
where people can get lost in the averages. But obviously
not all demographics are the same here, right, Did you
guys notice any differences when looking at either certain sectors
of the economy or certain age demographics in terms of
keeping up or especially losing pace to inflation.
Speaker 6 (15:40):
We wanted to look at an industry perspective, and we
did find that there are some industries that have actually
beat inflation. We're thinking accommodations and food services, leisure and hospitality.
The reason is exactly kind of what we were talking
about before. Those workers had tremendous bargaining power coming out
of the post pandemic no recession where they lost jobs,
(16:03):
companies tried to bring them back in a hurry. There
was that mismatch between labor demand and labor supply, and
that ultimately helped push up wages. That wasn't really the
same for other industries. The other industries that were really
trailing inflation the most were education and then construction.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
That's Sarah Foster from Bancrea joining us today talk about
how Americans wages are keeping pace or losing ground to
inflation over the last few years. Sarah, thanks so much
for joining us.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
Appreciate it, grace to be here, Thanks for having me. Well.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Street Journal piece today titled why a FED rate cut
won't solve the housing wealth gap, Well, it's because you
can't use a rate cut to go back in time
and buy before prices went up. Insurance is continuing to
go up in costs, property taxes are continuing to go up,
and as such, if you're on the outside looking in
for housing, you generally feel like you're kind of screwed
(16:56):
and have no chance.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Well, and furthermore, nothing about a rate cut specifically incentivizes
homebuilders to build more homes nor is it anywhere within
the FEDS mandate.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
It's not to make housing affordable. It's not their problem,
and it shouldn't be.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
You don't want the FED being the ones that makes
housing more affordable and solves the wealth gap. In fact,
I'll take it further, You don't want the federal reserves
solving the wealth gap at all. Rather, it's any area
of the wealth gap. You want them to do two things,
keep this in mind, only two. Keep unemployment low and
(17:36):
attempt to moderate price increases.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
The other thing that I got to say, it continues
to bother me when interest.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Rates are low.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Hey, low interest rates punish people who aren't homeowners, like
it makes it impossible for them to get into the
home ownership market. Well, okay, we raised interest rates. High
interest rates make it impossible for people to get into
It can't be both, apparently, can you have to pick
one and stay with it.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
High and low interest rates can't be the problem, Or
if they are, maybe the problem is in interest rates.
Maybe the problem is the overall amount of housing that
we have. Yeah, lower interest rates in my mind, the
only group that I can think that that definitively might
help risk av Yeah, I mean in the housing market specifically,
(18:23):
it's definitively Okay. If I have an outstanding mortgage at
like seven and a half percent and rates go lower, okay,
I know I can refinance my mortgage. I'm less confident
by the way that lower rates are going to lead
new home buyers to get more affordable deals on housing,
because competition is gonna keep back up for that housing.
Everybody's gonna want a motgage again, you're gonna have. I'm
not convinced you will see more inventory. I'm pretty convinced
(18:46):
you will see new buyers.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I think you'll see more inventory, but you buy like
I think what you end up with is how the
housing market is stagnated this year when you know rates
were high and more inventory came on, it'll help to
clear that inventory, but not more affordable prices. It doesn't
do anything on that, and it's not supposed to, by
the way. Quick break here, when we come back, we
(19:08):
have the trivia answer, and then we're talking Apple's hot
new product.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day.
It's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Mike, are you a fan of Apple's AirPods? No, I
don't have them. I don't either, Tucker, do you have them?
Speaker 4 (19:37):
I received them as a wedding gift from you know,
the being a grooms and.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Crows and gifts simply yes, what it's done. Yes? And
I barely use them.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
He has friends, whereas wet I barely use it.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
You don't you? How come?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I don't know?
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I have no need to you.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I barely on the phone. Can't you the music? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (20:01):
I don't. I just I have a speaker in my
living room and I listen to that.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
What about when you're working out?
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Okay, I guess we've covered all the use cases now.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
In any case, Apple's AirPods Pro two, with an update
that is being rolled out this fall, is being turned
into a real legitimate hearing aid. And this is very
cool for a couple of different reasons, the first being
that it obviously makes hearing aids accessible to just a
(20:37):
wide number of people who might know they need hearing
aids but might not have gotten off the couch to
do anything about it yet, and might own this product.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Because it's specifically designed for mild hearing loss, you have
a severe hearing loss, You're you're not going to be
all that impressed with these products, is my guess.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
So there might already be just a ton of people
with these in hand that can use them to be like, oh,
like does make you know my hearing much better? Maybe
I should continue to use this. But it also is,
as we've seen from Apple, this is one of those
use cases that I think might actually drive marginal sales
in some cases with the caveat these. I looked at
(21:17):
pictures of these just because I was curious, like what
they look like and everything. It looks like you have
earbuds in when you have these in, because you have
earbuds in when you have these.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, they're not hidden like a like some higher end
hearing aids.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
So a couple of things. If you see someone walking
around with air pods in, isn't your assumption that they're
listening to something else and not available to be talked to.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I think that's starting to change, is it. I think
so because of these products, which you know have been right.
They have all these different modes right where you can
do transparency mode where you can actually hear other conversations,
or you can you know, block all the noise out.
So I think it is becoming more common to have
a conversation with Yeah, your EarPods in, but yeah, that
(22:05):
would be a stopper for me. If somebody started talking
to me on the street that was wearing headphones, I
would assume they're talking to somebody on their phone. So
I do wonder about that.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
The other thing is, look, I think a lot of
people who do use hearing aids do want something with
as minimal as form factor as they can find, because
they don't want something that's drawing attention to it. Right,
this does somewhat potentially draw attention to it, but it's
also hey, it's a headphone, so it could just be
someone who's listening to headphones.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, a few years ago, something changed in the hearing
aid space. I don't remember what it was. It might
have been Medicare rules around them, where they became suddenly
massively more affordable and could be produced by a lot
of new competitors. And so I know that already occurred,
but I do think, you know, especially by the way,
(22:54):
if Apple can get this approved as a true like
Medicare eligible medical device, that does open up a new
potential sales channel for them. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
The big thing that happened it was back in twenty
twenty two, the FDA they announced that for people with
mild to moderate hearing loss, they don't need to get
a prescription and can buy right hearing aids directly from
stores or online vendors. And so it again you saw
the cost just absolutely collapse for the hearing aids that
(23:27):
fit that you know description, and so this potentially just
again add some additional accessibility here.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I don't know how much it drives in sales, but
I could see this being a marginal sales driver for
this product for Apple at least. Yeah, I could too.
I'm putting it in by grandfather's perspective, has worn hearing
aids for a few decades, and you know, talk to
me about that when twenty twenty two yelled around. And
these days his hearing aids do a lot more. They
do connect to his phone. He listens to music on
them when exercising. He talks to people. When I call
(23:57):
him on the phone, he's talking to me through his
hearing aid. So yeah, I mean for someone like him,
where he's already had the product for a long time,
he's not going to go to an AirPod. But for
somebody that is experiencing it and might need something but
doesn't go quite that far. Yeah, I think it opens
something up.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
And again, this is only on the air Pods Pro two,
It's not on any other version that is currently out there.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Chuck. Yes, next month we're hitting the road. We are.
We got some road trips planned. We have some road
trips planned. We are doing two live broadcasts of this show.
The Financial Exchange broadcast is going to be occurring in
October from the MGM in Springfield and the Marguerite Hotel
in Hyannas. Not at the same time. That'd be challenging.
(24:46):
That would be especially challenging for Tucker back here in
the studio trying to rerout all of it. But we're
doing a live broadcast of the Financial Exchange on October
eighth in Springfield at the MGM, and then following that,
we'll be doing a live broadcast on October twenty fourth
from the Margarita Vote Margaritaville Hotel and Resort on Hyannas.
We'll be following that up with a free live seminar
(25:10):
that Armstrong Advisory Group's doing after the Financial Exchange. Again,
October eighth and twenty fourth are the dates of the events,
but we'll be joined by Ed Lambert down on the
Cape where he'd be talking to us about the overall
political situation and heading into the election, and we'll be
covering a lot of that. Obviously, a lot of questions
being raised about tax policy coming out of the Harris campaign,
(25:32):
coming out of the Trump campaign, what might it look
like for tax rates and markets in the future. We'll
be covering that in a whole lot more, both during
the live broadcast as well as during the seminar following
the live broadcast. But once again we're doing one from Springfield.
That one's October eighth live broadcast of the Financial Exchange.
You can come on down see how we do it.
(25:52):
It's at the MGM Springfield October eighth, followed by the
Margarita Vote Margaritaville Hotel and Resort on Hyannas on October
twenty fourth. If you would like to sign up, space
is limited, so we do need you to sign up
ahead of time. You go to Armstrong Advisory dot com
slash events and you can sign up right there. You're
also welcome to call us and we can help you
(26:13):
register the phone number there for the Armstrong Advisory Group
is eight hundred three nine three four zero zero one.
But again Armstrong Advisory dot Com slash events to sign
up for our live broadcast of the Financial Exchange or
eight hundred three nine three four zero zero one.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
The proceeding was paid for by Armstrong Advisory Group, a
registered investment advisor. Nothing in the ad or in any
Armstrong guide a specific financial, legal or tax advice. Consult
your own financial, tax, and estate planning advisors before making
any investment decisions. Armstrong make contact you to offer investment
advisory services.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Mike, do you visit Indeed dot com very often?
Speaker 6 (26:48):
No?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Tucker, what about you? No?
Speaker 3 (26:51):
No, I feel like I have no other options? Stay
there in any case? Yeah, weekly, every single day. Spara
to get out of here every single moment. I guess,
I guess. They put up a chart on Indeed in
their Career Advice section, and it divided your career into stages,
and the first stage of age twenty one to twenty
(27:13):
five was exploration that sounds exciting. By age forty five
to fifty five you hit late career, and by fifty
five to sixty five you hit decline. And naturally, all
of those who were working in their fifties and sixties
are like, yo, man, just getting started.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Yeah, I'm cooking now, Like, let me keep going.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And this reaches something, you know, kind of gets to
something that we've seen over the last fifteen years in particular,
which is, hey, there are more people that are continuing
to work into their fifty sixty, seventies and now eighties
yea than any other generation previously. And in some cases
that is because they have to, though that's diminished somewhat
since the Great Financial Crisis, and now you're seeing more
(27:58):
and more people working into their seventies and eighties because
they want to, and they're saying, no, like I enjoy
what I'm doing. I like to do this to you know,
keep myself sharp and not enter into the decline phase
of you know, my life and everything. So no, please
don't refer to me as being in the decline phase. Yeah,
(28:18):
I have a family member who's right there.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
You know, he's at the age where he's going to
be working while of required minimum distribution agent. That's a
far more common occurrence than it was a few years ago.
And you know, it has been reshaping the labor market
around the edges. I think that's definitely the case more
than it was, say, thirty years ago. It also, you know,
(28:41):
causing to question a whole bunch of their rules around
things like social Security, like required distributions and how all
these things work. Right, if we have a larger portion
of the population working into their seventies, some of these
things might need to be looked at and reformed even
further than they already have been.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And I do love that they up a couple of
people that they reference here. First Eugene Fama, who is
a very famous economist who's literally had all kinds of
theories that have been published about markets. They reference him
as one of the people that they're talking about in
this and then Ian McKellen, who played Gandolf and Lord
(29:18):
of the Rings is another day reference. You might as
well just throw a Warren Buffett on the list, just
for I mean, there are also normal.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Average Americans that work into the seventies.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yes, there are not all Knights, no, exactly like you.
You don't have to be someone of like that stature
and that you know, renown to continue to work into
your eighties. It's like, oh, well, Morgan Freeman, you know
it was like ninety six right now.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
That would narrow the label laborpool quite considerably if you
had to be knighted in order to work into your seventies.
Do either of you think you'll ever be knighted? Maybe
by one of my kids, No, like by the king
or Queen of England. No, I don't think so. Not
rolling it out, mostly though I don't spend much time there.
I don't think that matters. Yeah, well maybe it does
(30:08):
a little bit. That's the only reason. Like if I
if I just spent a few more holidays in the UK,
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Can they do like an honorary nighting, like where you
get an honorary degree from a college.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Isn't the whole thing? Is? Well, then what's the problem.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
I think they give you a sword and you have
to like swear to you know, be a nice But
they don't send you in to the Crusades, not yet.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
You never know. This is just how they like pull
you in, right ye? In any case, classic bait and switch.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I thought it was getting just you know, a cool title,
and instead now I'm being deployed by.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
The UK somewhere. Let's take a quick break. When we return,
it's time for stack Roulette.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
The Financial Exchange Show. Podcast drops every day on Apple, Spotify,
and iHeartRadio. Hite that subscribe button, then leave us a
five star review. You're listening to the Financial Exchange Radio network.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
The Financial Exchange has built an incredible partnership with the
Disabled American Veterans Department of Massachusetts. You can't wait to
take part in this year's DAV five K, set for Saturday,
November ninth. That Fort Independence on Castle Island and registrations
now open. You can help our great American heroes by walking, running,
or simply making a donation. Your gifts will support services
(31:27):
such as the Veteran and Advancement Program, which offers permanent
and affordable housing opportunities for veterans and their dependents. Learn
more at DAV FIVEK dot Boston. The DAV five K
Boston is presented by Veterans Development Corporation.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Mike, what do you have for me for stack Roulettes?
What would happen if TikTok loses its fight over the
law that is banning it in the United States? The
obvious answer would be that it would be banned, would
one would think, But the opening arguments are starting today
in US Court Appeals in d C on the congressional
ban of TikTok specifically, and whether or not, Yeah, that
(32:07):
circuit will overrule the law that Congress passed here, But
certainly I think the risk is higher than any time
previously when this was done via executive action. This was
in fact a law that passed by Congress to say, yeah,
this platform cannot continue to exist in its current format. Now,
potentially what would happen here if it did in fact
(32:28):
pass and the TikTok lost their appeal would be a sale,
although Chinese owner ByteDance has made very clear that they
don't want to sail, and furthermore, the government has said
that they're probably not going to allow a sale or
at least a sale of the algorithms that go along
with the TikTok app. So I don't know where this
(32:50):
is going to be. I don't know where anyone's going
to go with it. You could make a pretty compelling argument,
by the way, that with Congress writing the law in
the way that they did, which was specifcifically banning one
company rather than saying, hey, if if an app you know,
breaks these rules, then we are going to ban it.
Perhaps this will get overturned. I'm not sure, but yeah,
(33:11):
huge market for TikTok. Obviously, if we look at other
social media companies, the United States is consistently at the
top of that average revenue per user list, so your
TikTok would lose out on a massive income base here
as well. And it's already banned in India, so there
aren't a ton of other new markets that they would
be able to enter into replace this. Yeah, it's I
(33:35):
think it should be banned by the way. I don't
know if that came across. I hope that they lose
their appeal and this is no longer I've voiced my
concerns about the Chinese government having this level of tracking data.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
And if if byte Dance comes out and you know,
if they lose, then they're like, no, we're not going
to pursue a sale.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Great.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Well, then doesn't it ultimately become even more apparent that hey,
you just wanted access to the data because them didn't
matter to you. Of course, Yeah, right, Tucker. You've been
watching some football games the last.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Couple I have had, you know, on DirecTV. No, god, no,
have you noticed anything about the games this year? Have
you not underwhelming?
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Have you noticed that they're boring. Yeah, a lot of
dogs are covering too well. I want to talk to
you a little bit about this, okay. Steve Palizzolo, formerly
of Pro Football Focus, has some data on this that
through the first two weeks, and granted Monday Night hasn't
happened here yet, but these are the number of passing
touchdowns through the first two weeks in the NFL one
hundred and five and twenty nineteen, one hundred and ten
(34:39):
and twenty twenty, one hundred and ten, twenty twenty two,
one hundred and five and twenty twenty three. I'm sorry,
I skipped a year eighty six and twenty twenty three,
sixty six in twenty twenty four. Passing touchdowns down forty
percent over the last two years now, and it's resulting
in a whole bunch of people. Again I don't know about,
(35:00):
but a lot of my friends, who you know, enjoy
gambling on sports or you know, fantasy football and this
and that, they absolutely despise what is going on right
now because they're saying, look, this is boring. I'm like,
I'm getting crushed by this and that and everything and
are generally not enjoying it. And what I'm wondering about
on this is before sports gambling was legalized, it was Hey,
(35:25):
I'm watching the games to watch the games, and I'm
watching the games. But if people start to have bad
experiences gambling on your sport, does that push them away
from it in any way, shape or form, or is
that not the case.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
I had a buddy yesterday who you know, I feel
like collectively people got smoked yesterday on the gambling front.
But one of my buddies was just like, Okay, I
get I'm pushing away now like NFL is too hard to.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Can't do it, But right now, yeah, I would think not.
I would eventually imagine that the odds change and you
have new people playing the same different bets this time. Yeah,
I don't know what the uh.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
I don't have an answer on it, but I just
wonder about it because for years we've you know, speculated,
all is this gonna be what you know hurts the
NFL is and nothing, nothing like nothing continues to it
doesn't matter. It's the only place that you can consistently
get tens of millions of people watching each weekend and
then hundreds of millions for the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Even if I have to change the app on which
I watched the program. Every single time I watch.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
It, it doesn't matter like it's it is kind of
impervious to everything right now. I just wonder if when
people start losing money on it because of this, does
that change it. But again, I think it kind.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Of has to prove that it would. Yeah, facts aren't
in evidence yet.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Taking Oligan market, it's still mixed right now. The Dow
is up one hundred and forty one points, SMPS down nine,
nasdack down one fifty two.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
We're done for the day. See you tomorrow.
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